


we can stay here (and laugh away the fear)

by cefmoon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Inspired by Poetry, Iruka is worrying, Just a line but tagging just to be safe, M/M, Mild Gore, Nightmares, Sensor Iruka, kakashi is a good boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24882301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cefmoon/pseuds/cefmoon
Summary: "I won't die for you," Kakashi continues, still in the same hushed tone, and his lips travel down to the scarred bridge of Iruka's nose, who gasps as if in pain at his words. "But I will fight to live by your side. For as long as you'll have me."That is all he can offer, and they both know it."What if I want to have you forever?"
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Umino Iruka, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 14
Kudos: 105





	we can stay here (and laugh away the fear)

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from [Intertwined by Dodie.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaHrWLCUmfc)

_"[..] His voice on tape, his name on the envelope,  
the soft sound of a body falling off a bridge behind you,  
the body hardly even makes a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road, every lover in the form of stars,  
the road blocked."_

_Kakashi hasn't come back._

The thought spins around and around inside Iruka's head for three whole days, while he's showering, eating, training, teaching, and filing reports. It's not a thought anymore. It's a reminder now. One that is filled with an overwhelming and churning feeling of worry, that invites the promise of the stench of iron along.

He already knows how the song goes. It's devastating, and Iruka hates the anomaly of having to imagine the worst; but the plot in this particular part of their lives, of this story filled with heroic sacrifices and selfless risks, is always the same.  
Kakashi is bleeding, drowning in his own sea of sorrow and regret somewhere in the world, and Iruka is left behind to worry to death.

It's bitter and twisted and he hates it with his entire body, from head to toe, because it can't be helped. And even if it could, would he?  
He wouldn't, he swallows the truth like a bitter and oversized pill. Iruka knows this like he knows his own name.

He is a pawn, too. A tool for them to use. Iruka is the one who teaches chubby fingers how to hold daggers and venom, he is the one who pats their backs with a proud smile and sends them off to murder and die.

This is the world they were born into, the only one they know; where children play with sharp objects, and everyone dances to the rhythm of inevitable violence.  
The world where mothers and fathers weep over loved fallen bodies; bodies that were promised to part in glory for their land, but when they bleed, they all bleed the same; too late to realize there is no gold inside their cold running veins.

_Kakashi hasn't come back._

There it is, the same line all over again. And Iruka wants to cry into his pillow but he won't. Because even after thinking the worst, even when his gut knows something his eyes don't want to see, he holds the small drop of honey-sweet hope close to his chest.

 _He will not die on me_ , he repeats like a prayer that tastes of ashes, squeezing his eyes shut and keeping the salty emotions away.

It all melts away when the bird taps on the glass of the window in his room. It is a dark animal and Iruka ignores the nagging superstition in his mind. It's just Tsunade's emergency summoner. He blinks at the silhouette while he attempts at keeping his aching heart inside his chest.

He doesn't play the part of unknown soldier as often as Kakashi does, but he still is one of them.  
Iruka knows how to kill and wield a sharp weapon, he knows the smell of charred meat and the sight of empty eye sockets, and even when he doesn't want to, he still takes other's breath away if duty calls out for him.

In the name of the Will of Fire and his deceased parents' sacrifice, Iruka sheathes a sword and nods at Tsunade's orders of retrieval, managing to keep his dinner inside his stomach out of pure will.  
He will swallow back bile the times it takes for him to straighten his thickened battle-worn skin over his body and ignore the ticking concern curling his fingers around the kunai's handle.

She sends him alone in the middle of the night and the woods swallows him whole without the bite of a single tree; only the moon and the stars as witnesses of his journey.

Iruka has an ability not a lot of people are aware of. One that helps him see around with his eyes closed and turn one with nature. Tsunade picks him wisely.  
Iruka knows Kakashi's electrical chakra like he knows his own and he could recognize the slightest trail from a mile away.

But there are no signs of him.

Iruka pushes forward, skipping branches and leaving swirling green leaves behind his back. He clenches his rough hands and sets his jaw, folds his panic, buries it deep inside his bones, and clings to the dissolving hope that keeps him going.

 _Please, please, please,_ he frantically begs to the gods above, pouring his own blood on the words until they're dripping crimson. _Let me find him. Let me bring him home._

Iruka loses track of time, his own panting and the rush of blood pulsing inside his ears are the loudest sounds he can hear. He can't afford to stop and catch his breath. His heart beating in a single familiar rhythm with every step leap he takes.

 _Ka-ka-shi, Ka-ka-shi_ , his feet move confidently while he focuses on his surroundings. By the time the landscape starts to change, trees becoming more sparse and freezing mountains coming to view, the sun has already started to rise over the horizon.  
Iruka hates the cold. He has been to the Land of Iron a few times but he's sure he will never get used to the biting air burning inside his nostrils.

His body is overheated and he's sweaty under his traveling cloak but he doesn't slow down. He focuses on keeping his senses sharp and alert. He's no longer in Fire Country's territory and if Kakashi's hurt, then he needs to be careful in case of encountering whoever caused the wounds.

His legs are burning with the strain of hours and hours of exertion, his lungs are aching and the tightness of the ponytail pulling at his hair is making his scalp pulse, but he doesn't even consider stopping. He knows with unwavering certainty that Kakashi is there, he can feel it in his bones.

 _I'm coming_ , he announces with renewed conviction. _Don't you dare to die on me._

_"[...] All night I stretched my arms across him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone  
**Please keep him safe.**  
Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed to pieces." _

Iruka slows down enough to take the deepest breath he can manage, the frigid air threatens to freeze his lungs, and he uses his chakra to reach out as far as he can, hoping with every tense muscle in his body to feel Kakashi's own. When he can't find anything, he swallows back a desperate groan and finally stops on his tracks.

His toes burn when the snow gets inside his sandals but he ignores it. He's not giving up, he will never give up on Kakashi. He needs to calm his frantic heart to concentrate better. Staying still takes its toll on his exhausted body, but Iruka ignores his aching limbs and swallows one of Sakura's soldier pills instead.

He perches his weight on a cold tree and focuses on catching his breath; the sounds of his surroundings slowly filtering in through his senses.  
He squeezes his eyes shut, putting all his energy towards concentrating and reaching out with his chakra again.

 _C'mon, c'mon Kakashi, don't do this to me_. Iruka persists, pushing even further until his head starts to throb painfully, filling his vision with agonizing white dots.

Then, a flicker.

It's faint, and if Iruka had been running he would have definitely missed it, but it is definitely there.  
He jolts into action immediately, following the fading trail over frozen ground and getting closer and closer, his heart thumping in his ears again.

_I'm almost there, Kakashi. Don't stop breathing._

Iruka clings to the fluttering warm sensation in his ribcage and follows the trail of his lover's dissolving power. He has to direct extra chakra to his feet so that they don't freeze or slip in the snow, but he barely feels anything else.  
Whether it's adrenaline or fear of what he might find, Iruka doesn't know.  
He doesn't want to know.

He's avoiding the things his gut is telling him again because they make sense. But Iruka refuses to hear that Kakashi's chakra is weak and on the verge of disappearing because he's... because he's sighing his last goodbye, gurgling the things he should have said before.

Iruka's stomach drops to his feet as he gets closer. There are signs of battle uncovering everywhere; from charred tree branches to crimson drops melting down the snow on the ground. The coppery smell in the air becomes so strong he can almost taste it. His eyes water but he can't tell if it's because of his desperate attempts of finding Kakashi or the stench of burnt meat.

There are corpses, enemy ones, littered around, holes punched in different parts of their bodies and he can't sense anyone else except for Kakashi.

Kakashi.

Iruka's whole body jolts when he sees that ruffled silver-haired head on the snow, his heart pumping at a dangerous rate that ends up slowing down almost immediately when he sees the rest of his lover's body.

There's blood. Everywhere.

Kakashi is sitting limply with his back against a tree. He's impossibly pale; his skin so transparent it camouflages with the snow around him. His vest, shirt, and armor are ripped to pieces, crimson liquid oozing out of his stomach like a sickening river flowing down a fall.

Iruka drops down without thinking, his movements too frantic to watch out for possible enemies lurking. He doesn't care. He doesn't give a shit. Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi. His eyes are closed, his hitai-ate long lost somewhere, his mask ripped almost all the way through.

His chest is not moving.

Iruka doesn't hear his own ear-shattering scream but the birds around him startle away almost desperately. There are hot tears running down his cheeks but he doesn't care. Kakashi is too still to be alive. He's not breathing.

There's blood. Everywhere.

Iruka kneels beside him, bile rising up his choking throat at the sight of Kakashi's intestines peaking out from his slashed abdomen. And before he knows what he's doing, he sticks his fingers into the wound in a frantic attempt to put him back together.  
But Kakashi's not a doll and that isn't a wound he can stitch up just like that.  
And Iruka is stubborn, and he wants to. He wants to push everything back inside and dress Kakashi in warm clothes again. He wants to wash the blood under his fingernails and fill his lover's insides with light.

 _This is not gold_ , Iruka thinks in misery, hands shaking, and soaking wet. _It's just red. It's just fucking red._

He wails, his throat setting on fire with the emotions he can't keep inside. There is no pulse. There is no breathing. Kakashi is not moving. Iruka was never enough to save him. Tsunade knew he was dead and the bird was right. There's no glory in this.

Where's the fucking glory they were promised?

Iruka smears blood on Kakashi's cheeks like a warrior's battle paint as he cups his cold face; through a blurry vision, he tries to get one last look of him and something shatters inside.  
At peace like this, Kakashi looks so young. Too young to be gone.

The sobs wreck his entire body as he cradles that head against his broken chest made of twigs.  
A new wave of fury washing through him.  
And Iruka curses everything.  
He curses the blood and mortality, the evilness of the world, and the hunger of violence in his own self.  
He curses the gods and the damned frozen land under his feet.

 _And let the cloaked figure come for him!_ he snarls, tightening his grasp, fingers pulling and stealing silver-white hair. _He will have to take him from me. Let him try._

Iruka hears the shrill laugh carried in the wind before he starts screaming again.

_"[...] Makes a cathedral, him pressing against  
me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe his mouth is heaven,  
his kisses falling over me like stars."_

Iruka jolts awake with an intoxicated gasp, like coming out of freezing water. His body sitting up against the wooden headboard of the bed before he even comes to full consciousness. His heart is racing, his breath coming out in quick, shallow pants like his lungs are broken balloons, and he feels a bead of sweat roll all the way down from his temple to the neck of his shirt.

"Hey, hey," Kakashi whispers, sleep still clinging to his voice but his warm limbs pulling him in. Iruka thrashes violently in his lover's incarcerating grasp but Kakashi doesn't know how to relent. He will never learn.

"It's just a dream, I'm here," he shushes inside a caramel ear. "I'm here."

Iruka sobs, coming down the frantic high fever of misery. His lover tightens his arms around his ribs, and Iruka can't breathe but it's okay. For now, Kakashi can breathe for both of them.

"You were dead," he weeps with hot salty rivers down his face, squeezing back with the same amount of iron-grip force. "There.. was... blood everywhere."

And it was red.

Kakashi's hands cover his back and holds him together while Iruka comes apart. His whole body shivering against the light under Kakashi's skin. And he embraces him through it; until Iruka stops trembling and his eyes dry up again. All the while ignoring the way his own pain stabs at his heart.

Kakashi knows he will only bring pain everywhere he goes. That's the price they have to pay for being alive and making their living out of destruction.

Iruka breathes him in, unaware of Kakashi's troubled thoughts. He takes his essence in, the scent of his sweat and fresh Konoha air.

He's real. He's real and alive.

But Iruka's brain is skeptical.

Kakashi lets him push his body down against the mattress and holds the warm thighs that suddenly straddle his hips.  
Iruka's still trembling and slightly panicked hands almost rip the shirt off Kakashi's body and frantically map his battle-scarred skin, pausing at the pulse points in his neck and wrists.

And Kakashi lets him sniff and trail away, shivering selfishly at the caress of those rough and impossibly hot palms against his navel and ribs.

"Can you?" Iruka's lips brush against his ear, his warm breath making Kakashi squirm under him. "Make it feel real. _Please_."

Kakashi nods softly, and his hands travel up Iruka's body vehemently, watching through half-lidded eyes how the brunet shivers under his fingertips.  
He keeps the movements slow, feeling like sweet torture as goosebumps break out on Iruka's skin. He wants the brunet to feel safe in his arms. And this is something Kakashi has learned since meeting him; how to keep his hands from being too heavy and overbearing.

He barely brushes the skin around the large scar in Iruka's back and softly pulls the brunet's shirt over his head, ruffling his loose auburn hair.

Kakashi looks closely at the face hovering over his, and his eye meets Iruka's own almost instantly.  
They're still shiny and irritated, holding the constellations and the cries of the heavens inside. There are no signs of fear in them anymore, though so breathing becomes easier.  
He flips them over slowly, letting Iruka's body hit the mattress with a soft bounce.

 _He looks so heartbroken_ , Kakashi muses, settling between the welcoming warmth between Iruka's legs and brushing a strand of long hair away from his scarred face.

And there's this urge, sudden and overwhelming, that shakes Kakashi's body with the effort of repressing it. He wants to put Iruka back together, desperately.  
He wants to stick his hand inside Iruka's chest and arrange the pieces of his heart like a gruesome puzzle.  
He wants to paint the skies above in warm colors and see them reflected in Iruka's smile.  
He wants to kiss the worry on his face until it all melts away.

"I'll hold you together," he whispers, bending down and brushing his chapped lips against Iruka's forehead softly. "Until my arms don't work anymore."

Iruka breathes in soundly, his hands rubbing at said arms, the faint ghost of a smile hovering over his lips. His eyes bright with tears again, but they're not salty anymore.

"I won't die for you," Kakashi continues, still in the same hushed tone, and his lips travel down to the scarred bridge of Iruka's nose, who gasps as if in pain at his words. "But I will fight to live by your side. For as long as you'll have me."

That is all he can offer, and they both know it.

"What if I want to have you forever?" the brunet asks, his voice shaking.

Kakashi smiles, dragging his lips from cheek to cheek making Iruka smile softly. His heart flutters with newly grown butterfly wings.

"Then you'll have to buy old people clothes for me and put arthritis cream on my knees every night," he jokes, digging two fingers on Iruka's side, right where he knows he's ticklish.

Iruka squeals and squirms under Kakashi's body, a bubble of laughter bursting past his lips. "Every night?" he asks, chuckling, his eyebrows raised playfully.

Kakashi snorts and nods, watching with endless amusement as Iruka's eyes light up at the same time the sun starts shining through the curtains of their room.

"Yup," he laughs and pokes at Iruka's side again, just to hear that adorable laugh again. "And don't get me started on the Viagra."

Iruka gasps scandalized and starts laughing even louder, a few tears escaping the corners of his chocolate eyes. "You had to make it gross, didn't you?"

Kakashi shrugs, still smiling, and kisses Iruka's soft lips lightly, nibbling on the bottom one playfully.

"Are you sure you'll have me forever then?" he whispers, half-joking, half-serious.

Iruka hmms thoughtfully, squeezing his lips to hold back a smile. When Kakashi opens his mouth to make another clever remark, the brunet shuts him right up by rolling them over quickly, straddling Kakashi's hips again.

The brunet looks earnestly into his lover's single open eye and allows himself to smile down softly at him.

"Always," Iruka whispers, before diving down to catch Kakashi's lips with his own again.

 _Okay then,_ Kakashi thinks, burying his fingers in Iruka's long hair, _I'll have to try my best and stay alive._

_"[...] Here is my hand, my heart,  
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated cities at the center of me, and here is the center of me, which is a lake,  
which is a well that we can drink from,  
but I can’t go through with it.  
I just don’t want to die anymore."_

**Author's Note:**

> The excerpts are from Richard Siken's poem (click to read the full thing if you're interested) ["Saying Your Names" ](http://youngerpoets.yupnet.org/2008/04/17/saying-your-names-crush-by-richard-siken-2004-winner/). I'm a big fan of his work.  
> As always thank you so much for reading! I write for fun and to help improve my English skills because it's not my first language, so seeing that you enjoy what I do is really satisfying lol 
> 
> Okay, that's all, I hope you have a nice day. I love you. Bye.
> 
> come say hi on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/wlwiruka) :)


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